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Heavy Rain O X L2+X YOU DIE!

Right, with that list out the way, maybe we should be talking about Heavy Rain. I wasn't the biggest fan of Fahrenheit, the concept was good (as far as I got, before things went silly) but it did rely entirely on QTEs (which I generally hate) and apparently the story just goes right off the rails and runs headlong into a tanker of explosive WTF.
But then, David Cage seems to have some good ideas about storytelling and the player's role in the game, and it looks like Heavy Rain might be closer to achieving those than he's managed so far. I'm making this thread because I read a preview/interview on Eurogamer that actually makes it sound rather good. Yes there does still seem to be some gimmicky interaction, but also some rather clever touches too. I'll post extracts from the text here, because it's 3 pages and I'm too lazy to copy it all across.

Now there's just over a year to wait until the full game is released. So what exactly is it all about? "Heavy Rain is an adult thriller based on five simple ideas," says Cage. The first of these is the "story-driven experience"; the plot that unfolds not via cut-scenes but directly through the players' actions. "You don't watch the story, you play it, and even generate it. You are not only the actor, but the writer and the director of the experience." Cage says he wanted to create an emotionally-involving narrative that would make the player care. "The characters on-screen are not just a bunch of pixels," he says. "They are real, living and breathing characters, and we do whatever it takes to create a feeling of empathy with them."

In addition, there is determination to create a game with an adult theme and subject matter. "We believe that videogames are mature enough to tell more complex stories carrying depth and meaning," explains Cage, "You've seen so many games telling you about rookies going off to the second world war, heroes trying to save the world... We try to tell a real story that's happening in a real world. No supernatural powers, no monster to kill, just real life." He reckons this can be just as exciting. "If not more."

Madison swings open the bathroom door to reveal there's a dead woman in the bathtub, her head and torso submerged in a pool of blood. Our heroine gasps, stumbles out of the room and opens another door. Just like in the trailer, we see oddly posed and dressed mannequins; except now we see they aren't mannequins at all, but real women who have been gutted and stuffed by the taxidermist.

"Oh sh**," says Cage. The strings reach a peak. The screen splits into two panes, and in the one that takes up the left-hand third of the screen we see a man pulling up outside the house and getting out of his car. In the right hand pane, Madison hears the car and starts looking frantically for an escape route. She heads for the stairs as he enters the house and heads for the kitchen. This isn't a cut-scene, confirms Cage; she's being controlled all the while, and the guy doing the demo is being sure to creep rather than run so the taxidermist doesn't hear anything.

As he settles down in an armchair and turns the TV on, Madison carefully and quietly opens the door to the garage. She presses the switch, rolls under the gap, races to her motorbike and rides away to safety. The strings ebb away and the ponderous piano music returns. Cage and his audience breathe a sigh of relief.

"That was cool, that was okay," he says. "But that was one story. We made it out of the house, we didn't get caught. We will call the police and the guy will be arrested. But what if, when we were exploring the house, we had changed something - left a cupboard door open, maybe - and the guy had noticed? What if, when we were escaping, we didn't catch that bottle we knocked over, and it smashed and made a noise?" Any number of actions, explains Cage, could have changed the outcome. So, "Let's play differently and see what happens."

Once again, we watch the man leave his car and enter the house. But this time, instead of heading for the kitchen, he starts walking up the stairs to the bathroom. "He's managed by AI, so I can't predict what he's going to do," says Cage.

Madison starts searching for somewhere to hide, and once again the options are context-sensitive - except now more than one button icon appears. This demonstrates something called the "impress system", according to Cage. You may have to hold down several buttons at once to maintain a position, and you may find that as a result your fingers are uncomfortable just like your character. In this instance, the man controlling Madison must hold down triangle, circle, R2 and L1 to keep her hidden in a wardrobe.

The taxidermist, having heard Madison moving around, enters the room. He looks under the bed. "It's a good job we didn't hide under there," says Cage. But now he's approaching the wardrobe. "Sh**." He pulls open the doors, Madison screams and the split-screen disappears as a fully fledged fight gets underway.

"That was another way of playing the same scene. We could play it five, ten or 20 times and show you different versions," says Cage. "We could have stayed hidden in the house, found a phone and called the police, who would have turned up and arrested the man. We could have killed him, perhaps using the screwdriver or the chainsaw. Or we could have been killed by him, which would be taken onboard by the script, and the story would continue with this information... There are many different options."

Sorry for the wall of text, I'll try and get some screenshots up later when I'm home from work.

Anyway. The trailer, along with the write-up all sounds very impressive. I'm cautiously optimistic but it just seems that there's too much for Cage to consider. Which wouldn't be a problem given an infinite number of hours and infinite resources. I'm seriously stoked, but I want to read more hands-on accounts before passing "hype" judgement.

Lofty ideas. Will be nice if they come to fruition. So far, I have this right next to Alan Wake. Beautiful, genre changing, next gen horror game that keeps getting delayed and seems too good to be true.

This has been near the top of my most wanted list ever since it was announced and it'll probably be the game that makes me buy a PS3. I loved Indigo Prophecy despite the wackiness towards the end (I think I would've called it my GOTY). However, I think one problem with IP was the sanity meter which actually punished you for hitting the right buttons. I remember when you have to escape from the office I had to intentionally miss the button presses a couple times or my sanity meter would hit 0 and I'd die. Retarded. Hopefully, with the grounding in reality Heavy Rain won't anything like that.

The quick time events look fun and frantic, and I like the subtle touch where the icon of the button you'd have to press moved around with the action on the screen. It really makes your eyes move around and take in the action.

Lofty ideas. Will be nice if they come to fruition. So far, I have this right next to Alan Wake. Beautiful, genre changing, next gen horror game that keeps getting delayed and seems too good to be true.

Yeah, that's kind of where I am. I'm really looking forward to Alan Wake, and if Heavy Rain lives up to its promise then it's one that'd tip a PS3 purchase for me. I really hope they can both succeed.

I’ll tell you what happens in Demon’s Souls when you die. You come back as a ghost with your health capped at half. And when you keep on dying, the alignment of the world turns black and the enemies get harder. That’s right, when you fail in this game, it gets harder. Why? Because fuck you is why.

As a bit of a digression, Indigo Prophecy, and now Heavy Rain I guess remind me a bit of the Wii. If you play the very excellent (IMO) demo of Indigo Prophecy, it felt really new and awesome, with the controls sort of mimicking what your character does on screen e.g. move the stick up and down to wipe away the blood etc. But after a while, especially when playing the full game it starts to feel very limited in what you can do. And instead of being this new style of more immersive control, it's almost the opposite of a more orthodox control scheme.

If you take something like HL2 which only gives you a few limited controls (e.g. move/jump/fire) you still end up solving puzzles and moving around the environment your own way piecing together the limited controls to do what you want. The gesture/QTE controls to me have the opposite effect, that instead of having this sense that you're really doing all this stuff yourself (say stacking up the boxes correctly) that all you're really doing is this monkey action which you either pass or fail at.

From previews, I believe those are just contextual things you could do, not have to do. For example, you could choose to knock his knife out, or ignore the command and grab a nearby lampshade (provided a context sensitive button popped out for it -- which, again, going by the write-ups suggests that's the direction they're heading, making most objects interactive).

To me this feels more like a natural evolution of Assassin's Creed (which I loved), where it isn't necessairly about how fast you can mash a button, but how critically you can think about your environment.

I hope this is good, because I hated Fahrenheit, even though I wanted to like it so much. I didn't even get to the crappy ending I heard so much about.

Also, while the graphics for this are good, I don't think they're the best this gen has to offer.

The Liepzig trailer doesn't really look that good. QTE's are never a good idea. Couldn't they find some other way to do action sequences? I have a feeling I will actually be watching more of this game than playing it (yes, I know I have an MGS avatar, shut up!)

I hear the controls for this involve using the left analog stick to move the character's head, and then pressing R2 to move the direction she's looking. Kinda wierd, but it might be interesting.

If it fails the way Fahrenheit did (sorry, I really didn't like that game) than it will be a god-damn shame. But I really hope they spit in my face and make this game glorious, I want them to more than anything.

Hm. It looks interesting, but QTEs as gameplay instead of in support of it really annoy me. Whether or not this is nifty depends entirely on how much solid adventure-gaming stuff there is in here. Indigo Prophecy managed to have a few really nice sequences of "figure out how to get everything done correctly", but the QTE portions were just really damned annoying. Hell, the version I played had a glitch at just the right moment in a QTE that you died every time without fail.

So basically, this had better not be Leon/Krauser fight: The Film. I want to think and plan and do stuff correctly in a realistic environment where people notice if I fuck up. Action is secondary.

I think my problem with QTEs is that they don't feel natural or flowing. You're playing the game and you learn the controls through that, when suddenly you're asked to think about them differently while a game tells you what buttons to press, and fast. It's a detachment. I'm ready to wait and see how it pans out in this, but I much prefer a standard set of controls to learn and perfect, rather than something that never lets you feel truly comfortable. Also, I find myself watching the screen for prompts rather than paying attention to the action behind it, which both ruins my entertainment and the oft-mentioned 'immersion' that it's trying to create.

From previews, I believe those are just contextual things you could do, not have to do. For example, you could choose to knock his knife out, or ignore the command and grab a nearby lampshade (provided a context sensitive button popped out for it -- which, again, going by the write-ups suggests that's the direction they're heading, making most objects interactive).

To me this feels more like a natural evolution of Assassin's Creed (which I loved), where it isn't necessairly about how fast you can mash a button, but how critically you can think about your environment.

I have not seen a single thing point towards these not being completely traditional QTEs.

I have no idea what you're referencing with that. In fact, read the Eurogamer write-up. It doesn't even hint at QTEs just being suggestions with awareness of the environment giving the player choice.

It's just like in the trailer; the two characters face off across the bed, and after an X icon appears on-screen Madison picks up a lamp and smashes her enemy over the head. He chases her into the toilet, she kicks him out of the way and races down the stairs. She stumbles and a triangle icon pops up; when the demo man fails to press it in time, she falls and stands up with a bruise on her cheek. Eventually, she makes it to the garage, rolls under the door and runs out to the motorbike. This time it won't start, and another series of button presses is required before Madison is able to drive away. The taxidermist watches her go, then turns and heads slowly back into the house. The screen fades to black and a single shot is heard. It's over. Again.

You see that? That's just a string of QTEs.

Now I'm normally the first person to wonder why people see QTE and assume that it's bad just because it's a QTE, despite there being examples of QTEs being used well(God of War) and in the best cases, being optional. However, these QTEs look to be the only way combat is done.

The QTE I bring up as an example of QTEs done right is the God of War Cyclops killing QTE. That QTE doesn't have Kratos doing anything completely outlandish. He doesn't suddenly gain massive amounts of skill and power when he does them. But having a specific control for jumping on a cyclops, stabbing its eye, and then stomping on the blade would've been horrible. It would've needlessly complicated the combat system. Also having it just be one button press to initiate it would've gotten old really, really fast, because you'd just be watching this mini-cutscene. However, doing the QTE finishes them off faster, you're still involved in the action, and if you choose to, you can just continue to beat the cyclops up and kill him the old fashioned way.

This doesn't look like that. This looks like forced QTEs that aren't something you can accomplish outside of them.

I'll be the odd man out here and say that I really, really enjoyed Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit. Yes, the story became completely nonsensical after a bit, but I was really intrigued by the whole experience. It was nice to be playing something completely different for a change. I don't know what it was about that game - maybe the fact that I felt like I had a huge influence over the story - and that (at least in the beginning) it seemed to be just about a normal guy living his life and trying to deal with strange circumstances. Shite, I'm totally getting that game again now.

So basically what I'm saying is that I'm buying the hell out of this game.

Wait a minute. It's PS3 exclusive? That is a terrible, terrible thing.

Khavall, I've tried explaining above why I tend to hate them. It feels like it's removed from anything else I've learned or been doing, and also stops me from being able to actually focus on the game and events taking place. Rather than watching Leon fight Krauser, I have to concentrate on my finger-placement and wait for the next instruction.

This doesn't look like that. This looks like forced QTEs that aren't something you can accomplish outside of them.

Ah, I skimmed it at work.
My bad, but I was referencing more how it isn't just one set path for the overall plot. Force Unleashed demo = only way to kill the miniboss is a QTE. Here you could fight the killer (series of QTEs, fair) or try to hide, or try to slip-on by. But no, you're right.

I’ll tell you what happens in Demon’s Souls when you die. You come back as a ghost with your health capped at half. And when you keep on dying, the alignment of the world turns black and the enemies get harder. That’s right, when you fail in this game, it gets harder. Why? Because fuck you is why.

I didn't mind the QTE's in Indigo Prophecy; to me they were just the game mechanic needed to get through each scene. I thought the concept was kinda clever, to be honest. But then again I liked Indigo Prophecy even though apparently no one else did.

And what I see as traditional QTEs are, if you don't get them precisely right = you instantly fail, be it dying or having to restart a boss take-down or even an entire section.

Here if a QTE doesn't go as planned there are other options. THAT's what made me think it's not the trad-usage of the QTE button mash. Trip down the stairs? Well there may be other options after that other than INSTA-KILL/FAIL. My only issue with QTE "abuse" is when that's the only way to propel the plot forward, be it in an enemy kill or in solving a rhythm puzzle (see the Force Unleashed demo's miniboss).

Either way, Khavall, it's all good. I'm still very curious to see where this game goes.

I didn't mind the QTE's in Indigo Prophecy; to me they were just the game mechanic needed to get through each scene. I thought the concept was kinda clever, to be honest. But then again I liked Indigo Prophecy even though apparently no one else did.

And what I see as traditional QTEs are, if you don't get them precisely right = you instantly fail, be it dying or having to restart a boss take-down or even an entire section.

Here if a QTE doesn't go as planned there are other options. THAT's what made me think it's not the trad-usage of the QTE button mash. Trip down the stairs? Well there may be other options after that other than INSTA-KILL/FAIL. My only issue with QTE abuse is when that's the only way to move the plot forward, be it in a kill or some puzzle action.

Either way, Khavall, it's all good.

Yes, and I like that they said that even if the character you're playing in that scene dies, the story moves on without her. Very cool. And the whole AI thing where something different happens every time. OHHHH it sounds so good. Now I just have to hope for an eventual port to 360.

Yeah, I kept thinking of the Krauser knife fight when I watched that gameplay trailer there. I mean, let's face it, replace Leon with some girl in a leather jacket, Krauser with some middle aged dude, and the factory(?) with a house. You know what? That knife fight was awesome. I think this'll be alright. Might even make me get a PS3 if it's good enough.

I’ll tell you what happens in Demon’s Souls when you die. You come back as a ghost with your health capped at half. And when you keep on dying, the alignment of the world turns black and the enemies get harder. That’s right, when you fail in this game, it gets harder. Why? Because fuck you is why.

I also liked Indigo Prophecy up until the endgame, when it started getting stupid.

Spoiler:

And they removed his girlfriend from the equation, when the relationship stuff was the most interesting part of the game.

I actually never finished the game because of that.

Spoiler:

I was in the middle of a hard breakup. My girlfriend wanted some "time apart". So I now had alot of free time on my hands. So I decided to sit down and finally beat this game. I figured it would be a good distraction from my life at the time.

So I get to the part in the apartment where your girlfriend walks in to get some of her stuff. And it is really weird between the main character (or one of them rather) and his sorta ex. Then you have dialog choices that were pretty damn realistic, then you can choose weather or not to try and kiss her. And I think I must have screwed up cause she left. But the dialog and voice acting was so damn good, it made me think of my sort ex-girlfriend and our problems.

And that part really made me sad cause it reflected what was going on in my life at the time. So I put down the game, never played it again, and actually traded it in. It wasn't fun to play at the time.

I should give it a go one more time. Considering that my girlfriend and I got back together and now I am going to marry her!

I also liked Indigo Prophecy up until the endgame, when it started getting stupid.

Spoiler:

And they removed his girlfriend from the equation, when the relationship stuff was the most interesting part of the game.

I actually never finished the game because of that.

Spoiler:

I was in the middle of a hard breakup. My girlfriend wanted some "time apart". So I now had alot of free time on my hands. So I decided to sit down and finally beat this game. I figured it would be a good distraction from my life at the time.

So I get to the part in the apartment where your girlfriend walks in to get some of her stuff. And it is really weird between the main character (or one of them rather) and his sorta ex. Then you have dialog choices that were pretty damn realistic, then you can choose weather or not to try and kiss her. And I think I must have screwed up cause she left. But the dialog and voice acting was so damn good, it made me think of my sort ex-girlfriend and our problems.

And that part really made me sad cause it reflected what was going on in my life at the time. So I put down the game, never played it again, and actually traded it in. It wasn't fun to play at the time.

I should give it a go one more time. Considering that my girlfriend and I got back together and now I am going to marry her!

I also liked Indigo Prophecy up until the endgame, when it started getting stupid.

Spoiler:

And they removed his girlfriend from the equation, when the relationship stuff was the most interesting part of the game.

I actually never finished the game because of that.

Spoiler:

I was in the middle of a hard breakup. My girlfriend wanted some "time apart". So I now had alot of free time on my hands. So I decided to sit down and finally beat this game. I figured it would be a good distraction from my life at the time.

So I get to the part in the apartment where your girlfriend walks in to get some of her stuff. And it is really weird between the main character (or one of them rather) and his sorta ex. Then you have dialog choices that were pretty damn realistic, then you can choose weather or not to try and kiss her. And I think I must have screwed up cause she left. But the dialog and voice acting was so damn good, it made me think of my sort ex-girlfriend and our problems.

And that part really made me sad cause it reflected what was going on in my life at the time. So I put down the game, never played it again, and actually traded it in. It wasn't fun to play at the time.

I should give it a go one more time. Considering that my girlfriend and I got back together and now I am going to marry her!

I also liked Indigo Prophecy up until the endgame, when it started getting stupid.

Spoiler:

And they removed his girlfriend from the equation, when the relationship stuff was the most interesting part of the game.

I actually never finished the game because of that.

Spoiler:

I was in the middle of a hard breakup. My girlfriend wanted some "time apart". So I now had alot of free time on my hands. So I decided to sit down and finally beat this game. I figured it would be a good distraction from my life at the time.

So I get to the part in the apartment where your girlfriend walks in to get some of her stuff. And it is really weird between the main character (or one of them rather) and his sorta ex. Then you have dialog choices that were pretty damn realistic, then you can choose weather or not to try and kiss her. And I think I must have screwed up cause she left. But the dialog and voice acting was so damn good, it made me think of my sort ex-girlfriend and our problems.

And that part really made me sad cause it reflected what was going on in my life at the time. So I put down the game, never played it again, and actually traded it in. It wasn't fun to play at the time.

I should give it a go one more time. Considering that my girlfriend and I got back together and now I am going to marry her!

Spoiler:

You can convince her to stay, but

Spoiler:

you might be sorry you did.

What? Really?

Damn it, now I have to go hunt down a copy tonight.

EDIT: Double damn, my backlog continues to grow and grow.

Yeah, this thread ended up making me add the game to my Goozex queue. I'm actually really excited to play it again.

Indigo Prophecy was like the biggest bait and switch ever. You had this awesome set of scenes at the beginning of the game that gave you the feeling your actions mattered. On replays, you realize it's all superficial.

And the QTE's were awful. Like darleysam said, there's this tense action scene going on, and you have to watch the buttons popping up on the screen. I can't even tell you half of what happened during the rooftop fight.

With that said, though.... from the trailer it looks like the QTE's are better, since they pop up as part of the scene, in a way. I just really doubt the final product will be able to match the potential that is hinted at.

Either way, I guess it doesn't matter since if it's PS3 exclusive, I'll never play it.